If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.

An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.

It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire

The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Amassing of wealth is an opportunity for good deeds, not hubris